Page 10 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
The wonder in Ridley’s voice had Tristan furiously shoving his hat on his head, opening the front door, and stalking through it. The air was crisp when it hit his lungs, scented with woodsmoke and frost, the hills and dales of Yorkshire. It smelled likehome. He gazed into the distance, over the fallow fields, guessing snow would be upon them by lunch. He loved winter, loved this section of England, wanted no part of London anymore. His estate, Tierney Hall, needed attention, care his father had not given it in years. Backbreaking work Tristan was looking forward to accomplishing. He should leave Longleat as planned, right this minute, before tromping through the forest with Camille for a tree to placeinsidethe house, an outrageous tradition that had made its cozy way to England.
But instead he stood there on the veranda of Lady Fontaine’s modest country manor, a home Camille was trading her future to save, while marveling that he, duke, soldier, rake, scoundrel, not in any particular order, was possibly, maybe, perhaps developing feelings for his best friend’s little sister. Viscount Ridley’s intended.Yes, that one,he thought and blew out an agitated breath.
Under normal circumstances, a duke beat a viscount any day of the week, but Camille was not—and this was part of his fasciation, he understood—a woman who took the sure bet.
What scared him the most?
The notion of leaving her in his bed and waiting for her to arrive at his breakfast table for tea, crumpets, and theTimes.
It felt right, a circumstance he thought he’d rather enjoy.
Something, he could tell Ridley but wouldn’t dare, he’d never desired with the same woman, either.
* * *
Tristan had misbuttoned his greatcoat. Near the top, leaving a bulge of wool she couldn’t take her eyes off. Her fingertips tingled with the urge to repair.
So Camille did what she knew she shouldn’t. Stopped the duke with a touch to his elbow as they entered the woodlands bordering Longleat Manor, letting the countess, her aunt, and Ridley move deeper into the pine thicket, her aunt giving her a playful wink that correctly assessed Camille’s folly as she passed.
Tristan’s cheeks, beneath the wide brim of his hat, were rosy, his breath fogging the air where it exited his lips. He carried the ax because they’d all quietly agreed he was highly capable, and he stood there gazing at her with a flat, undecipherable expression.
She gazed back, recording the changes. Faint lines streaking from his mouth, broader of face and body. A pale scar on his temple she assumed was from the war. Another beneath the line of his jaw. He shifted the ax from hand to hand, allowing the perusal, after a moment doing his own, his gaze scorching where it touched. Neck, waist, knees. A gradual slide to the tips of her boots, a gradual rise back. When his eyes returned to hers, the heat banked inside moss-green was marked.
“Are we going to stand here mentally stripping each other of clothing, or are you going to tell me what you want?”
She blinked, her stomach knotting as heat flooded her body. “I wasn’t mentally stripping you of anything.”
He dug the tip of the ax’s blade into the moist earth. “Just me then. Apologies.”
“Your coat,” she said stupidly and gestured to the missed button.
He glanced down, a smile flexing the edges of his lips. “Ah,” he said as if this wasn’t a real reason. As if she’d done it to gain a private audience with him.
As if she’d done it so she couldtouchhim.
“Never mind.” She brushed past, the recognizable brand of embarrassment Tristan dished out as vexing as a hard pinch. “I simply wanted to correct a mistake, so you didn’t look foolish in front of the others.”
“My sartorial angel,” he murmured and easily caught up to her. Taking her wrist in hand, insistent, he halted her step. “Come now, would you leave me thus, with my rig-out requiring emergency, in-field adjustment? I can’t chop down some poor, helpless tree for your holiday pleasure with my buttons mismatched.”
“Rascal,” she whispered, but mirth undermined the word.
“Urchin,” he returned with his own delight.
Oh, to hell with it she decided and put her hands on the Duke of Mercer.
As she’d been dying to all morning. All herlife.
She didn’t touch him any more than necessary, however, as she set about repairing the closure of his coat. Also, she kept her gaze focused on his chest while she worked and not a speck higher. Or lower. They didn’t speak. She tried to ignore how his body had warmed the thick wool, and the way his minty breath brushed her temple in tepid bursts. Ignore how wonderful he smelled—of soap and nutmeg and oolong tea. Ignore the scrape of starched linen against his skin as he shifted to allow her better access.
But it was for naught. Awareness, hot and dazzling, traveled from her fingertips to her toes and back like it was on a track with no exit.
This was no kiss.
It was better. It was worse. It was maddening.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked in an uneven tone.
Her hands had fallen still, pressed into his woolen lapels. Snow was drifting in fat chunks around them. The air was thick, charged, molten. It felt like they were the only two people in the world. “Why did you decide to stay?” she asked and finally,finally, found the courage to look into his face, to note the thin black border circling his irises, specks of amber mixed in. His eyes were truly spectacular, and if he didn’t have so many excellent features, she’d have said they were his best.